A law professor argues that the U.S. constitution as written in 1787 was pro-slavery. Frederick Douglass implores fellow abolitionists in 1857 to have faith in American law. And I realize that the civil rights cases I read in class represent over a century-long effort to re-write the Founding Fathers’ accommodation of slavery in the original constitution.

On this episode of BeyondtheBlackLetter, the podcast about the law that goes beyond the rules, we hear from a robbery victim and wonder why a rule of evidence prohibits lawyers from arguing that someone did something because it was in his or her character to do so. We look at pre-modern trials and their reliance on character evidence; contemporary psychology; and one philosopher’s doubt that character traits - as we know them - even exist - before a quirky turn in an interview leads us to recognize a striking similarity between this rule of evidence and the art of storytelling.